


fire in my veins, lightning in my blood

by voltron_is_mine_now



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: A retelling of the story of the Dream SMP, Beta read by me we die like Technoblade, Dream is as well, Gen, Magic, Minecraft, Phil and techno are jerks in this ngl, Phoenix TommyInnit, Rated teen for language, briefly, minecraft but realistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28811262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltron_is_mine_now/pseuds/voltron_is_mine_now
Summary: Tommy knows from a young age that he’s different.He hides it behind the obnoxiously loud facade, most of the time. He jokes and fights and gets into ridiculous arguments for no reason other than to convince people that he’s nothing but what he appears to be: The annoying, dumb, brutally honest kid. And it works, Tommy thinks ruefully. If you went up to Phil or Technoblade and told them Tommy had a secret, they’d laugh in your face. Tommy? No. The kid’s an open book.The wind ruffles his hair. The clouds swirl a thousand feet beneath him as he turns a wing to cut a lazy arc through the sky.⸻⸻⸻A retelling of the Dream SMP in which Tommy is a phoenix.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 13
Kudos: 532





	fire in my veins, lightning in my blood

**Author's Note:**

> I saw one Phoenix!Tommy fanart and my brain refused to let it go so here we are  
> Disclaimer: Everything in this story is COMPLETELY PLATONIC. If I see you shipping people that don’t want to be shipped I will pull a Technoblade and punt you into the sun  
> Some tws// drowning, graphic violence, please don’t read if it will hurt you!  
> (Please ignore my username, I initially created this account just to repost my old v*ltron stuff.)

Tommy knows from a young age that he’s different. 

He hides it behind the obnoxiously loud facade, most of the time. He jokes and fights and gets into ridiculous arguments for no reason other than to convince people that he’s nothing but what he appears to be: The annoying, dumb, brutally honest kid. And it works, Tommy thinks ruefully. If you went up to Phil or Technoblade and told them Tommy had a secret, they’d laugh in your face.  _ Tommy? No. The kid’s an open book. _

The wind ruffles his hair. The clouds swirl a thousand feet beneath him as he turns a wing to cut a lazy arc through the sky. The air should be too thin for him to breathe, up here, but Tommy sighs out a quiet breath nonetheless.

The moon glints above him, beginning to descend in its nightly journey across the sky, and Tommy tucks his wings in and plummets.

He’s heard the stories, of course. The legends of people like hybrids, but different—people whose eyes glinted like dying coals, whose wings were fiery red and yellow, whose ties to life and death were a little more frayed, like strings left above a burning candle.

He snaps his wings out fifty feet above the forest and glides to a halt. He lands with barely more than a stumble and a hop and tucks his wings in, feeling the way they shiver and shrink until there’s nothing but a faint burning sensation across his shoulder blades, like the lapping warmth of a fire. He starts to trudge home.

He’s heard the stories.  _ Phoenixes, _ they call them. Tommy lifts a hand and a fire kindles itself in his palm instantly, lighting his way home. That’s what Tommy is. A phoenix.

Although nobody knows, other than him.

⸻⸻⸻

Dying feels like all his worst memories coalescing into a maelstrom of pain. 

One second he’s in a tiny obsidian room, fear shooting ice through his veins, his heart thudding so loud it’s all he can hear. Then Sapnap plunges his sword into Tommy’s chest and he sucks in a single breath and then he’s dead.

He’s familiar with the process of dying by now. At first there’s darkness. Then blinding light. Then the pain takes hold. His cells tear themselves apart and turn to ash and the pain is too much, too much, it’s all too much—

The memories swirl through his head, the tiniest snippets of his life. A woman’s face, her blue eyes hard. The blur of an axe swinging toward his skull. Droplets of rain mingling with his tears. The feeling of burning alive, flames raking across his skin, so bright that they leave spots in his eyes.

Then he wakes up.

He’s the first one awake, and the most lucid. The ones appear around him, curled in fetal positions, and slowly they begin to open their eyes and realize.

One life gone. Two remaining. For everyone except Tommy, that is.

And Tommy is selfish, okay? He’s a selfish prick, he’s a horrible person. Because he’s  _ still _ scared of dying, he’s  _ still _ terrified of feeling those sensations again after a sword is plunged into his stomach and he’s doomed to lay in the snow as he bleeds out. And he could’ve ended this long before now, but he doesn’t. 

He’s still scared they’ll find out. And then what?

But he still challenges Dream to the duel. And when the arrow pierces him in the chest, he’s not too surprised. He does think  _ That bastard _ with quite a bit of venom, but it’s a burst of light and pain and memories—falling, fire, fear—before he’s waking up yet again. 

He’s failed, anyway, but he hasn’t sacrificed as much as Wilbur thinks he has. He sacrifices his disks instead, and when he tells Wilbur, Wilbur claps him on the shoulder and laughs and says he’s proud of him, and Tommy thinks maybe he isn’t so selfish.

His wings, tucked carefully away, feel like they’re burning.

⸻⸻⸻

It’s almost worse when Tommy is exiled. 

He’s exiled with Wilbur, of course, so that’s a plus. But then Wilbur starts to get all panicky and then he starts to yell and Tommy’s so confused,  _ We should be the villains, _ what is that supposed to mean? Tommy isn’t a villain. He doesn’t want to be a villain.

He knows he  _ could _ be. He could burn villages to the ground in a matter of seconds. An immovable object and an unstoppable force at the same time. He could be the greatest villain Esempi has ever seen.

But he doesn’t want to be. He shuts his eyes and sees the flickers of those flames again and he turns away from Wilbur with a muttered, “I need some space.”

Wilbur calls in Technoblade, and Tommy dares to hope for half a second that maybe this will get better. He’s been writing to Techno nonstop for weeks, ever since they were first exiled, but when Wilbur writes Techno actually replies. And then he’s in their ravine and laughs when he offers to help Wilbur take down Schlatt and Tommy dares to hope that he’ll help.

Wilbur keeps spiraling. 

Tommy stretches himself thin. He worries about Tubbo and he worries about Wilbur and he worries about whether or not Techno is really on their side when he seems so powerful and yet so disinterested. He doesn’t spare time to worry about himself. He’s not important. Even if he dies, he’ll just come back to life. Why would he need to worry about himself?

Dream offers Wilbur TNT. Wilbur takes it.

Tommy starts having nightmares. His shoulders start to ache where his wings have been tucked in for so long. He can’t remember when he last flew.

When he looks at his wings, they look darker red than they used to be. 

The Festival happens. Tubbo seems happy, so Tommy smiles at him and keeps his worries to himself. When he confides in Wilbur he just gets yelled at, and sometimes talked at, lectured about Wilbur’s wants and his needs and how they need to get Schlatt out of power. 

So they go to the Festival, and Tommy watches his idol kill his best friend in a burst of brilliant sparks.

His vision goes red. The fire starts to flicker in his blood, only dimming when Tommy pearls over just in time to catch Tubbo’s body as he collapses. Tubbo opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. His grip on Tommy’s shirt tightens a little.

Tommy watches the light fade out of his best friend’s eyes.

He yells at Technoblade and yells at Wilbur and yells to the emptiness of the ravine. Tubbo wakes up with burn scars arcing across his chest and the right side of his face. Tommy’s shoulders ache. He’s trying so hard to control the burning in his blood that Technoblade knocks him out easily. 

Time seems to flood, sweeping him along with it as it flows down the path of his memory. It seems like every day is half a second until they’re finally fighting to take down Schlatt.

Schlatt dies clutching his chest and gasping out a final rattle. Tommy renounces the presidential podium and smiles at his best friend. Wilbur disappears, but Tommy doesn’t worry too much because he looks happier than he has in weeks.

He sees his father again half an hour later, as the ground explodes beneath his feet.

Tommy is deathless, but Wilbur is not. 

Tommy’s tears burn when they roll down his face.

⸻⸻⸻

Tubbo exiles him.

Tubbo exiles him after Tommy pays a visit to George’s house, after he stares for so long that the fire in his blood finds its way into the real world and he crumples to his knees and then he’s looking up to find flames singeing their way up the side of the wood and mushroom as Tommy watches in abject shock.

And really, what is there to say?  _ Sorry, I’ve been keeping this huge secret from you for years but I’m actually an undying mythical creature, whoops? _

Ghostbur accompanies him to what they name Logstedshire. Tommy’s heart aches when he curls up in his new tent—tnret, he means—and he sighs out an exhausted breath.

Time seems to ooze by like molasses. And Dream is his only friend now, isn’t he, the only person willing to visit him, the only person willing to deal with his company, so Tommy can’t complain. 

The lava starts to look more and more appealing.

The first time, Dream yanks Tommy backwards by the collar of his shirt and gives him a condescending smile. “It’s not your time to die, Tommy.” And it’s never Tommy’s time to die, but he still finds himself staring longingly at the lava as he steps across the wooden bridge in the Nether. He’s fireproof, but he doesn’t know about lava. He wonders whether it would feel like a hug. Like a warm embrace.

Phoenixes can die. Tommy knows that phoenixes can die. He knows that phoenixes die when they’re ready to die, when they’ve finally given up.

His wings turn black.

Tommy cries sometimes. He cries the night after his failed beach party, when no one but Dream bothered to show up. The tears burn when they trail down his face.

He’s really, really tempted to give up.

Eventually, Dream finds his hidden stash of stuff. Tommy shoves his pictures into his pockets as Dream sets TNT alight and tosses it at the chest, and Tommy watches, wide-eyed, as the explosion rattles the ground and obliterates everything inside. 

Dream tosses Tommy to the ground and leaves.

Tommy climbs up as high as he can, looks down at the ground, climbs higher. The clouds swirl around him. He takes a deep breath. He shouldn’t be able to breathe up here, but he can. 

Tommy jumps.

He tumbles through sky and stars and time itself, memories flickering rapidly through his brain. Phil ruffling his hair. Wilbur’s hand on his shoulder. Tubbo’s arm linked with his. 

Tommy unfurls his wings and swoops upward just before he crashes to the ground. He lands with a tumble and a thud and a rock scrapes his cheek open but he can’t bring himself to care. 

He pushes himself to his feet and sets off, away from the ruins of Logstedshire.

⸻⸻⸻

He finds Techno completely by accident. 

His original plan—to live in Techno’s walls, mooching off his supplies—fails very quickly, but he supposes this temporary alliance with Techno will work. After all, Techno is Phil’s son, sort of, and Tommy is Phil’s son, sort of, so they’re technically brothers. Right?

And for a while, things seem to work. Tommy feels a little lighter, a little less like a burden as he starts to pull his own weight. They fight for resources. They bicker like Will and Techno used to. One day Techno teaches Tommy a bit of Greek mythology and he does his best to avoid zoning out.

They take a hostage together. Techno grins at him proudly when Tommy threatens him, fangs gleaming in the low light, and the fire in Tommy burns a little brighter. When he checks his wings, they’ve gotten a little lighter, a little more red.

Techno hands Tommy the Axe of Peace and tells him he’s worthy. He tells him he considers him an equal. 

Then the Community House is blown up. 

And it wasn’t Tommy. It  _ wasn’t. _ Not that anyone believes him anymore. And the words slip from his mouth completely on accident, a yell of all his anger and all his fear and every bad feeling he’s felt since he was exiled.  _ The disks were worth more than you ever were! _

Tommy doesn’t like the person he’s become with Technoblade. So he steps to Tubbo’s side, gripping the Axe of Peace tightly in one hand, and whispers,  _ Give him the disks. _

Technoblade bares his teeth and snarls, “Get ready for Doomsday.”

⸻⸻⸻

Doomsday has arrived.

TNT rains from the sky. The obsidian above their heads glints, blocking out the moonlight to cast a shadow over the ruins of L’Manberg. The fire in Tommy burns a little brighter, a little angrier.

Techno sweeps a leg under Tommy’s feet and Tommy hits the ground with a thud and an angry “Oof!” He shoves himself up, but the ground crumbles beneath him and before he knows it he’s falling, hands scraping desperately for any handholds but finding nothing but loose rock. 

Tommy lands in a puddle twenty feet down.

Dimly, he thinks that it’s a good thing it was him and not someone else; that fall would’ve broken a normal human’s ribs. Even with his reinforced phoenix bones, it knocks the wind out of him, and he curls into a ball, struggling for breath.

Above him, Techno glances over the edge of the pit at Tommy’s battered form. Then, without further ado, he turns and walks away. 

Tommy’s stomach curls. He shoves himself up, first to his hands and knees and then to his feet, wincing. He glances around for any exits and finds none. Of course Techno would shove him into the only pit with no way out.

The fire in his veins flickers a little brighter.

Tommy grits his teeth, then gets a running start and leaps.

The loose rock crumbles beneath his hands, but he’s nimble enough and strong enough that he can scramble up the face of the cliff, yanking himself over the edge and rolling onto the grass. He lays there for a second, gasping for breath, then thinks,  _ Oh, fuck. _

Welp. There goes another life.

Half a second before the TNT hits him in the face, a hand closes around his arm and yanks him backward. Tommy skids over the rough ground to the side, and the TNT explodes close enough to make his ears ring and send a wave of heat over his face.

He turns to Tubbo, who’s wide-eyed and seems to be talking, but Tommy can’t hear what he’s saying. He shakes his head to try and shake away some of the disorientation from the explosion, and slowly other noises come into focus. 

“Tommy!” Tubbo is shouting, over and over again. Tommy sits up, blinking, and Tubbo grabs his shoulder and then throws his arms around him. “You’re okay!”

Tommy’s mouth opens in a silent  _ Oh. _ He wraps his arms around Tubbo’s shoulders and gives himself a second to think  _ Thank Prime he’s alright. _ Tubbo pulls back after a few seconds and says, “Dream is coming, quick, we have to—”

He goes silent, eyes widening with horror. Tommy glances behind himself to find Phil, his wings outstretched and his sword leveled at both of them. 

His heart sinks.

Tommy stands up, pulling Tubbo with him, and makes sure to stand in front of Tubbo as he looks Phil in the eyes. Phil can kill him, for all he cares, but he can’t kill Tubbo. Tubbo’s on his last life. 

He’s already lost one brother to his father. 

“Phil,” he says.

Phil doesn’t smile. “Tommy.”

“What are you doing?”

Phil’s sword stays leveled right at Tommy’s chest, enchantments glimmering across the blade. “What does it look like we’re doing, Tommy?”

“Destroying my home?”

“Destroying a corrupt government,” Phil says. “Get out of the way, Tommy. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t want to hurt Wilbur either, huh?”

Phil’s eyes go wide. “That’s not the same.”

“Right,” Tommy snarls. He locks eyes with his father and watches the anger turn to an icy chill. The fire in Tommy’s chest flickers even higher. “I’m not leaving.”

“Tommy—”

Then the world is spinning, and Tommy’s vision tilts and whirls and all he can think as  _ Oh fuck, oh no, oh— _

He blinks his eyes open, his ears ringing, to find Phil hovering above them, his wings casting a shadow that wavers with every flap. He can see a blurry silhouette on the obsidian grin, a glint of white and red. Dream stares down at him, more TNT in his hands. “We warned you,” Phil calls, and then he lands on the obsidian grid and disappears.

Tommy looks around frantically for Tubbo and finally catches sight of a lump a few feet away, almost hidden in the smoke from the explosion. He scrambles to grab him by the shoulder and yank him onto his back. “Tubbo?” 

Tubbo’s eyes slide hazily open. “Tommy?” he asks. There’s a trickle of blood running down his temple. Tubbo sits up, groaning. “Tommy,” he repeats.

Tommy stands up, extending a hand for Tubbo, and hauls him to his feet. The buzzing in his blood rises to a crescendo until it’s all he can hear, all he can feel, fire flickering through his veins and his nerves and across his skin.

His shoulders start to prickle.

“Tommy?” Tubbo asks, as smoke starts to curl from Tommy’s clenched fists. “Are you—”

Tommy takes a breath and smiles. “It’s okay, Tubbo.”

“Tommy?”

“It’s not your fault,” Tommy says. “Whatever happens, I promise it’s not your fault. Just—” He hugs Tubbo on impulse, and Tubbo wraps his arms around Tommy’s waist and squeezes so tight he can barely breathe. He doesn’t mind. He pulls back and keeps his hands on Tubbo’s shoulders, feeling oddly calm despite everything. “Live your life, okay?”

He takes a step back, then two, then three.

His wings burst from his back and spread wide. 

Tommy leaps upward and flies.

He angles high up, glancing around. His vision is sharp—maybe the adrenaline, maybe the phoenix-ness. He spots Dream easily. The green bastard is standing atop the obsidian grid, surveying the ruins of L’manberg like the proud conqueror of a kingdom. 

It is unspeakably satisfying to swoop in and kick him in the face.

The mask cracks beneath his boot. Tommy tucks a wing in and spins to face Dream. The fire finds its way into his fists and lights up, blindingly bright in the darkness and smoke. “Hey, dickwad,” he snarls. “Miss me?”

It’s a little unnerving, since Tommy doesn’t know whether or not Dream is even looking at him, but he grins at him anyway.

“Tommy,” Dream says. “What—”

“I’m a phoenix, bitch!” Tommy flaps a little higher. He throws out a hand, and fire shoots straight toward Dream. Dream flips effortlessly out of the way, tugging his axe out.

Tommy does  _ not  _ expect him to leap through the air and swing the axe at his head. He tucks his wings in and drops like a rock, air ruffling over his head. His heart thuds in his ears. 

Dream lands safely on the next row of the obsidian grid and turns to face Tommy. The crack in his mask widens, a couple chunks of ceramic dropping to the ground. 

“You’re a phoenix,” Dream says. 

“Always have been.” Tommy dodges the flaming arrow, but just barely. His heart rate speeds up. 

He can feel the hostility radiating off Dream in waves, darkening the air and sending fear flickering through Tommy’s brain like a skittish animal. He’s prepared for the next arrow, but it still skids close enough that it would’ve singed his skin if he wasn’t, you know, a flying torch.

He’s never gotten the chance to really try out his powers before. The closest he’s gotten is trying to torch a target from a distance, but all that really came out of that was a pile of ash and a larger pile of questions from Techno as to what happened to his target. Now Tommy discovers that he uses far too much power. Instead of a fireball, he sends a wave of flame soaring toward Dream that dissipates harmlessly a foot before it would burn Dream’s face off.

Dream coughs, waving at the smoke. Tommy thinks  _ Why the hell not? _ and goes for it.

Kicking him in the face worked the first time. It does not work the second time. Dream darts to the side, grabs Tommy’s ankle, and yanks him downward. He swears and crashes into the obsidian grid, rolling a couple times and shoving himself up as Dream swings his axe.

Tommy leaps off the edge.

He’s struggling for breath but feeling triumphant—maybe he has a chance, maybe he can win this—and then Dream turns away from him.

Tommy’s heart plummets. He almost falters in his flapping, his breath catching in his throat as Dream nocks an arrow in his bow and aims for Tubbo. 

Tommy’s not sure how he does it. He’s not sure how he even sees Tubbo through the smoke and the dust and the wreckage of their old home. But that angry fire in the pit of his stomach goes from a bonfire to a single blazing coal, and Tommy raises a hand and tosses the fireball like he would throw a ball.

It crashes into Dream’s back with a burst of sparks and knocks him forward, almost knocking him off the grid. Dream whirls around. Half of his mask crashes to the ground.

Tommy’s heart rises to his throat.

Dream’s visible eye is pure black, with a single venomous green dot in the middle like a pupil. It blazes with fury as it narrows at Tommy.

Dream lunges at Tommy before Tommy can do anything but gasp.

They crash out of the sky. Tommy wrenches himself out of the memory of dying—falling, falling, falling,  _ crash, _ no, no, get it together—and wrestles for freedom, but Dream’s arms are vices around his waist, pinning his left arm to his side and leaving his right hand to scrabble uselessly.

The air is cold around him. Tommy wonders, dimly, if it will take long to die after he crashes into the ground.

The water is a shock to his system, slamming the air out of his lungs. Tommy gasps in a breath and gets no air, just water. He chokes and coughs and sinks.

Dream’s one visible eye glows with determination.  _ He’s bringing us both down, _ Tommy realizes.  _ He’s going to kill me. _

He’s not too unhappy about the thought of dying. He knew he would die going into this. But it’s a lot different when his lungs are screaming for air and he’s sinking deeper and deeper and deeper, kicking frantically as Dream drags him further from the surface, further from life.

Tommy exhales all the air left in his lungs and feels the burning emptiness.

He can’t use fire under here. He can’t fly. He can’t do anything.

He keeps fighting despite all that, the image of Tubbo caught in his mind, the image of Dream nocking an arrow aimed at his head. He can’t lose Tubbo. Not after Wilbur, not after Techno, not after Phil. He can’t lose Tubbo.

Like Dream is reading his mind, his grip on Tommy tightens. 

Tommy hears his voice as if in a dream, crystal clear and hazy all at once. _ I’m going to kill you, Tommy, _ Dream whispers, his voice edging on glee.  _ I’m going to kill you over and over again until you give up and die for good. And before that, I’m going to hunt Tubbo down and I’m going to kill him in front of you, as slowly and painfully as I can. _

Bubbles trickle helplessly out of Tommy’s mouth.

He’s not sure what happens. That fire in his chest, the fire that’s been fueling him for these last weeks and months and years and all his life—the fire floods his veins and his nerves and every cell of his body. It consumes. It destroys. It burns.

The frayed thread tying Tommy to life goes taught. Then it snaps.

Tommy’s vision goes white. 

⸻⸻⸻

“Tommy?” Tubbo shrieks, and watches Tommy tumble out of the sky, a blur of red and gold and green. 

Tommy and Dream hit the lake and go under.

Tubbo scrambles to run, but he’s stuck in this stupid pit, and he has to climb out, but his ankle is messed up from the explosions and his head is all fuzzy and he has to get to Tommy, he  _ has _ to, he has to help—

His breath comes quicker and quicker. His vision goes blurry with tears and panic as he scrambles for hand- and footholds, yanking himself up the side of the cliff. He slips and falls the few feet to the ground, twisting his ankle under him again. He swears under his breath, quietly and then with more vigor, and tries again.

He’s got one arm over the edge of the pit, then the other, and he’s rolling over the edge and scrambling to his feet and running, but the surface of the lake is completely still.

Tubbo is still running when the lightning arcs out of the sky and into the water.

For a second the water goes clear, and Tubbo can see Tommy and Dream framed as if in a picture. Tommy’s eyes are pure white, glowing with fury. The lightning seems to follow his command, arcing across his skin and crackling with electricity as Tommy grabs Dream’s arm and all that electricity surges into Dream.

In that moment, Tommy radiates power, glowing with something strange and dangerous and  _ otherworldly. _ Dream’s body jerks at the lightning, but Tommy still holds tight, despite the lack of air and the lightning crackling through his body.

A curse falls out of Tubbo’s mouth completely on accident.

The glow starts to fade as Tommy’s eyes flutter shut. The electricity dissipates as quickly as it had come, and the world resumes. The water goes midnight black again.

Tubbo dives into the lake. 

He swims deeper and deeper, lungs straining for air, searching frantically for any sign of Tommy. He catches an arm and grabs hold, yanking forward, but finds Dream floating. He seems unconscious.  _ Good, _ Tubbo thinks, and fumbles for Tommy.

He feels a feather first, then a wing, then a shoulder. Tubbo wraps an arm around Tommy’s waist and kicks frantically upward.

They breach the surface with a gasp and a shudder, and Tubbo paddles for the shore, dragging Tommy’s limp body with him. He tugs him onto the dirt. Tommy looks wrecked, soaked to the bone, still buzzing with electricity, his wings splayed behind him. Tubbo shakes his shoulder, trying to contain the frantic fear that suddenly writhes in his stomach. 

“Tommy,” he says. “Tommy, c’mon, wake up—”

Tommy’s eyes fly open, glowing pure white. Then Tommy blinks and his eyes are blue again. He looks up at Tubbo for half a second, then leans to the side and proceeds to cough up enough water to create another lake.

Tommy finishes coughing and croaks, “Tubbo.”

“Tommy.”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth tilts upwards. “Did I—did I do it?”

“You did,” Tubbo whispers. “You did it, Tommy.”

“Good.” Tommy’s head lolls to the side, and Tubbo catches the side of his face and props him up. “I’ll see you later.”

“What?” Tubbo croaks. “No, Tommy, don’t—don’t, you only have one life left—”

“I’m a phoenix, Tubbo,” Tommy says. “It’s okay.”

His eyes flutter shut. Tubbo watches him exhale, watches how he doesn’t inhale again, and fights down a sob.

⸻⸻⸻

_ Tommy hits the ground with a choked cry. _

_ His father looms over him, fists clenched. There’s a smudge of soot on his face to match the smudge of blood on Tommy’s, and Tommy’s heart thuds in his chest as he rolls onto his back and scrambles away. The mud is slippery under his palms.  _

_ He can still smell the smoke rising from the house, despite the rain pouring down. _

_ He can barely see his father, his vision blurry with tears, but he talks frantically anyway: “No, no, please,  _ please, _ I promise I’ll be good, I promise, I’m sorry—” _

_ “Get out,” his father snarls. “Get out.” _

_ He kicks Tommy into the mud and turns away. And Tommy’s sorry, he really is, he’s sorry, he’ll fix the house, he doesn’t know what happened except he didn’t want to go to bed, but his parents wanted him to go to bed, and then everything was smoky and thick and dark and Tommy remembers an arm around his waist, yanking him out the door and tossing him into the mud, and his father’s voice, louder than the coughs racking Tommy’s tiny frame, and Tommy will go to bed, he’ll be good, he  _ will—

_ But his parents are gone. They’re gone. _

_ Tommy sobs. _

_ A blur of black, then he opens his eyes again. _

_ He’s coughing, loud and harsh, curled into himself in the wreckage of their house under the section of the porch that didn’t collapse. He’s cold. He’s so cold. He’s wrapped an old blanket he found in their shed around his shoulders, but he can’t seem to get warm. He can’t seem to stop shaking, either.  _

_ Tommy can’t get enough air. He can’t get enough air to breathe. _

_ He sobs and coughs and chokes and then he’s hacking up his lungs, gasping for air, desperate for something, anything,  _ please—

_ His vision goes black, then white. The image of his charred house flashes through his mind, the echo of his father’s slap stinging through his vision. The pain seems to take hold of Tommy’s bones and stomp them into shards, and he opens his mouth to cry but discovers he can’t, not here, wherever he is. _

_ He opens his eyes and finds himself curled in the same spot he was before, sore all over, not coughing anymore. The blanket lies forgotten beneath him, a little more sodden than it was before. Tommy’s stomach goes cold and tight as he realizes. _

_ He just died. _

_ One life gone. _

_ All of a sudden he’s whirling through memory after memory. He’s taller in this next one, scrawny, with scabs on his knees and his wings shimmering unapologetically behind him, a shaky “Oh” escaping him as he stares down at the sword buried in his stomach.  _

_ The knight pulls his sword out, and Tommy collapses. _

_ He opens his eyes again to find himself in an alleyway, his hands raised in mock-surrender, a frantic plead on his lips that dies unspoken when he attempts to run. He hits the ground with a thud, pain flaring through his elbows, and then there’s a boot to his chest and a knife to his throat and Tommy thinks,  _ Well, this is it.

_ He wakes up again. _

_ Tommy is a phoenix. It’s a blessing and a curse.  _

_ Mostly a curse, really.  _

_ The whirl of recollection doesn’t still. Tommy tilts back and forth between space and time. Concrete against his knees, the crack of his spine, wind whistling through his ears as he flies away. Dying over and over again. A knife to the back. A spear buried in his stomach. An arrow through his throat. Every time, Tommy dies. Every time, Tommy wakes up. _

_ Phil. Wilbur. A hand extended to him, calloused fingertips and freckles, a guitar. Techno. Pink hair and a fanged grin and thinly veiled annoyance in his eyes at Tommy’s constant chatter. Shouting. Tears rolling down Wilbur’s face. A hand extended to him just like before, years later, the half-grin with sad eyes as Wilbur whispers, “Wanna come with me, Toms?” _

_ A tiny fox baby and Wilbur’s exhausted face. A van. A boy with an odd liking for bees. _

_ Fear. A sword in his gut. An arrow in his chest. Blood in his mouth. Bombs. A tower. Snow. Discs. Fire. Fear. _

_ Lightning crackles at his fingertips. _

_ Tommy stares down at his hands, stained with blood. He glances up when he hears footsteps. _

_ Tubbo stands in front of him, smiling, and holds out a hand. _

_ “You’re not real,” Tommy whispers. “Right?” _

_ Tubbo shrugs one shoulder. His smile doesn’t falter, but it looks a little sad, a little nostalgic. A little hopeful too, maybe. “I don’t know if I’m real,” Tubbo says. “But I’m waiting for you. Whenever you wake up.” _

_ “Wake up?” _

_ Tubbo just waits. _

_ Tommy lurches forward and grabs Tubbo’s hand. _

_ His world tilts on its axis. _

⸻⸻⸻

When Tommy wakes up, his first thought is  _ Ow, fuck. _

His second thought is  _ Oh, fuck. _

He jolts upright, taking note of several things at once: He’s in a room, he’s in a bed, and he hurts pretty much everywhere.

He’s also shirtless.

He gives a couple experimental flaps. His wings ache, and Tommy winces. He hasn’t been very nice to them recently. He owes himself a nice preen and a long flight. 

Tommy looks down at himself and swears out loud. Holy— Are those  _ scars? _

What happened? He lifts a hand to brush his hair out of his face, still staring down at his chest. The scars are red and spidery, arcing down his chest and across his shoulders. They look a little like lightning bolts. What did that?

He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands up. He regrets that pretty quickly. His vision goes blurry, then black, then blurry again until the blood stops roaring in his head and he gets a little less dizzy.

Tommy exhales, takes an experimental step, winces. He tries another step and it hurts a little less, so he limps to the door, twists the handle, and pokes his head out. He blinks. 

He’s in his old home. With a couple noticeable additions—it looks like there’s a makeshift kitchen to one side, and a new-looking dining table and chairs to the other. There’s a good smell coming from the kitchen.

“Tubbo?” Tommy croaks, and Tubbo drops the salt shaker into the pot of soup and whips his head around. 

“Tommy?” he shouts, then trips over his own feet in his haste to throw his arms around Tommy’s shoulders. “You’re awake!”

“I am!” Tommy says, smiling where Tubbo can’t see. Tubbo’s arms are tight around his waist.  _ So clingy. _

Tubbo pulls back, beaming. He glances at the scars and his smile falters. It nearly disappears completely when Tommy asks, “What happened?”

“You’ve been passed out for two days now,” Tubbo says. “You died, and then you woke up here, I guess because that was where you last slept”—oh yeah, Tommy did sleep here the night before Doomsday—“and you just didn’t wake up again, which was weird, and I was worried, but now you’re awake!”

“I’m awake,” Tommy agrees. “Now tell me what the fuck happened. Why did I pass out?”

Tubbo forces half a loaf of bread and a quarter of the pot of soup into Tommy while he tells the story, shooting him irritated glances whenever Tommy pauses in his eating. He tells the story in bits and pieces, stumbling when he describes the lightning. “It was amazing,” he says. “The lightning came down out of the sky, and it, like, went  _ into _ you, and then you sent it into Dream, and your eyes were all glowy, but then you passed out. I pulled you out of the lake and then you died.”

“Oh,” Tommy says. He looks down at his hands, imagines lightning shooting out of his scarred palms. “I really did that?”

“You did.” Tubbo is smiling but looks a little awkward, too. 

Tommy bites his lip. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you ‘cause I didn’t tell you I was a phoenix,” he blurts. “I mean—nobody knew. Not even Phil or Techno or Wilbur. I didn’t tell anybody.”

“And now everyone knows,” Tubbo says.

Something in Tommy’s chest aches a little. “Yeah.”

Tommy doesn’t miss the grateful glances Tubbo shoots at him when he thinks Tommy isn’t looking, or the thinly-veiled sadness in his eyes whenever he looks at the new scars. “We match now,” Tommy points out through a mouthful of soup and bread, gesturing at the firework scars that cover Tubbo’s chest and the right side of his face.

Tubbo seems to brighten. “We do!”

Tommy tugs on a shirt as Tubbo shoves their plates into the sink—“I’ll wash them later,” he says, which Tommy takes to mean  _ I’ll wash them in three weeks or so, _ but whatever. He cuts slits in the back of the shirt with a knife and tugs it on over his wings. He’s not tucking them away anytime soon.

He sits down on the bed and huffs a comfortable sigh. 

He hears the footsteps, then feels the creak and the tilt of the bed as another weight settles onto it. “You have wings,” Tubbo says, behind him.

Tommy feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, shit, really? I didn’t know.”

He can  _ feel _ Tubbo roll his eyes at him. “I mean,” Tubbo says, and then there’s a hand combing through his feathers near his shoulder, “do you, like, clean them?”

Tommy tenses even though logically he knows it’s Tubbo, he knows he wouldn’t do anything bad. “Uh,” he says, as the hand trails through his feathers. “Yeah? I mean, I do. Clean them. Sometimes.”

Tubbo snorts. “Do you need help?”

_ No. No, I’m good, really. I am perfectly capable of cleaning my own wings, even though it hurts just to pick up a spoon and I’m definitely not going to be able to reach back to comb through the feathers. I am just peachy.  _

Tommy takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah, actually, if you don’t mind?”

He always wondered what it would be like to have a friend to help. He remembers seeing Wilbur or Techno comb through Phil’s feathers after a battle or a windy flight, remembers offering to help and staring wide-eyed at the feathers so similar to his own. He remembers the dull ache in his chest as he kept his secret.

Tubbo is achingly gentle, achingly careful as he combs through red and gold feathers, tugging out the loosest ones and smoothing the bent ones. At some point he starts humming, some meaningless off-key tune. Tommy feels warm all over. He feels safe.

Tommy falls asleep like that, sitting up, his head lolling forward and his eyes slipping shut. 

He wakes up curled on his side, with a note in terrible handwriting on the pillow beside his head.  _ Went to visit Niki _ and a smiley face.

Maybe things will be okay.

⸻⸻⸻

He’s not really sure what he expects from the citizens of Esempi after his grand reveal, but it doesn’t turn out too bad. 

The first person that he has a sort-of-confrontation with is Niki, the day after he wakes up. He’s trailing Tubbo because he’s tired of being cooped up in the house, his wings tucked comfortably behind his back, out for the world to see. 

The bakery smells like fresh bread and warm sugary pastries. Tommy’s stomach growls, and Tubbo muffles a snicker. He shoves him in the shoulder. 

“Hi, Niki,” Tubbo calls. “I brought some fish to trade for bread?”

Niki looks tired, with circles under her eyes and her newly-pink hair tied loosely back, but she still musters a smile. She tugs a pan out of the oven and slides it onto the counter. “Thanks, Tubbo,” she says. “Here you go.” She wraps up three loaves of bread and hands them over.

Her eyes linger on Tommy a little too long. She drags her curious gaze away when Tubbo chirps, “Thank you,” to smile and nod.

“Hey, Tubbo,” Tommy blurts, as Tubbo turns to leave. “I’m gonna stay for a couple minutes and I’ll catch up with you.”

Tubbo blinks. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

The door swings shut behind him. Tommy levels his gaze at Niki. 

“The L’mantree was burned,” he says.

Niki’s mouth goes thin. “I heard.”

“You did it, didn’t you?”

There’s a moment of silence where Tommy thinks maybe he’s wrong, maybe his accusation is completely baseless. Then Niki ducks her head. “I did,” she whispers.

Tommy feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “Why?”

“I . . .” Niki stares down at her flour-dusted hands. “I don’t know. I just—I was angry. And sad. I still am.”

Tommy stares at her for a few long moments. Niki meets his gaze, tears dripping unapologetically down her face. She looks war-torn and lonely. He wonders how long she’s looked like that. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Now we can start over. Nothing to remind us of the past.”

Niki’s eyes widen the tiniest bit. Then she nods, a small smile on her face. “Right,” she says.

Tommy turns to leave.

“Tommy,” Niki calls after him. He glances around. “You have beautiful wings.”

It feels a little like something an older sister would say. It feels a little like acceptance. Tommy feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

He races out of the bakery into the sunlight to catch up with Tubbo.

⸻⸻⸻

Ghostbur is next. 

Tommy’s sitting in a tree, because he can. He’s technically supposed to be harvesting apples, but he’s kind of shoved that responsibility to the side in favor of letting his legs swing and staring up at the sky. 

Ghostbur floats up to him, smiling brightly, and says, “Tommy!”

“Ghostbur,” Tommy says. Ghostbur settles—well, as much as a ghost can settle—onto the branch, swinging his legs like a little kid and grinning. “How have you been?”

Ghostbur’s eyes glaze over for a second, and he frowns. “I—” he whispers. “I lost Friend, I—” He exhales harshly, and his eyes go back to their clearness as he smiles. “I’ve been good! I’ve been talking a lot with Techno and Phil, you know, helping with things, and they got me Friend back too!”

Tommy musters a smile. “That’s great.”

“Mm-hm!” Ghostbur’s gaze flicks toward Tommy’s wings, and he reaches out a hand before Tommy can even scoot away. His touch is cold and a little strange, a little otherworldly. It sends shivers across Tommy’s wings as Ghostbur runs a hand down a feather. “Your wings are so shiny!” He looks up at Tommy innocently. “I didn’t know you had wings!”

Tommy laughs. “I, uh, I kept them hidden for a while,” he says.

“Oh,” Ghostbur says. “Why did you do that?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know as well.”

Tommy doesn’t even think, just jumps off the branch and unfurls his wings. He’s a hundred feet in the air before he even considers turning to look down at Techno and Phil, who stare up at him coldly. Adrenaline shoots fire through his veins.

He takes a breath in, a breath out.  _ Fuck, I need to calm down. _ He clenches his fist, feels the brief flare of fire against his palm before it flickers out. He descends slowly, gliding to a stop on the same branch he took off from. At least here he has the height advantage.

“Hey, fuckers,” he calls, trying to summon the bravado he doesn’t exactly feel. “Come to stab me again?”

“It wouldn’t work very well,” Techno deadpans. “Since you’re a phoenix and all.”

A pang of guilt goes through his chest at the bitterness in Techno’s tone. Tommy forces it down. He shouldn’t feel guilty for keeping this from them. If they were actually a family, maybe. But they’re not. “I am. What’s it to you, bitch?”

Phil’s wings flutter behind him. “You didn’t tell us,” he says. “Why?”

“Why the fuck would I tell you?” Tommy forces a harsh laugh. “It’s my business.”

“Tommy—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tommy mutters, too quietly for anyone but Ghostbur to hear. Ghostbur just stares at him, floating by his side, his eyes wide with curiosity and something like innocence. Tommy leans back against the tree trunk. “I didn’t tell you ‘cause enough people have stabbed me already,” he says.

Phil’s eyes go all sad. “We wouldn’t have stabbed you,” he says, too quiet for any human to hear. “We were your family. Why didn’t you tell us?”

The fire in Tommy’s gut flares high.

He acts on instinct, hopping off the branch and gliding to a stop right in front of Techno and Phil. Smoke is rising from his clenched fists again, and Techno looks vaguely threatened. Phil just looks tired. 

“You wanna know why I didn’t tell you?” Tommy snarls. “I didn’t tell you because my  _ first _ family didn’t give a shit about me, not after they found out I was a phoenix, and people killed me over and over again until I learned how to keep my fucking mouth shut. I—” His voice cracks. “People thought drinking my blood would give them immortality. They thought killing me would give them my powers. So I kept it a fucking secret. And turns out I was right to do that, because my second family screwed me over too as soon as I  _ disappointed _ them.” He huffs a breath, his chest tight with emotion. “The only one of you who gave a shit about me was Wilbur, and he’s fucking  _ dead, _ so don’t act like you had a right to know. You don’t have a right. It was  _ my _ secret to keep.”

Tommy turns away, spreading his wings in preparation to take off, but freezes at Phil’s shaky voice.

“I’m sorry,” is all he says.

The fire in Tommy dulls to embers. “You should be,” he whispers.

Ghostbur finds him an hour later, crying, with his arms wrapped around his knees.

“Did you and Phil and Techno have a fight?” he whispers.

Tommy swipes furiously at the tears running down his face. “We did,” he says. “I’m, uh—I’m really mad at them.”

“Hmm.” Ghostbur’s arm circles around his shoulders, and Tommy is suddenly, violently reminded of how Wilbur used to wrap an arm around him and ruffle his hair when he would wake up crying because the house was too empty. “Well, I hope you feel better soon.” He brightens. “Maybe we can fly together!”

Tommy huffs a teary chuckle. “Yeah, Ghostbur,” he says. “That would be nice.”

⸻⸻⸻

He gets a murmured acknowledgement from Eret, a stiff shoulder squeeze from Fundy, a smile from Bad. He talks to Sapnap, his wings folded behind him, as they watch Mars swim back and forth in the tank Sapnap has created for him.

“I’m glad you took down Dream,” Sapnap says, eyes fixed on Mars.

Tommy blinks. “Oh.”

Sapnap’s mouth twists the tiniest bit. “He was a good guy at first. Even when he got the power, he—he was a really good guy. He wanted to help people. And then . . .” He shrugs one shoulder. “Power corrupts, I guess.”

Tommy hums an agreement. “How’s Gogy?”

Sapnap snorts. “Doing well, all things considered.” His eyes go sad. “We might move on soon. To another land. Just like old times.” There’s an unspoken  _ But minus one person _ that neither of them give voice to. 

“That sounds nice,” Tommy says. “I’ll be glad to get rid of you.”

Sapnap snickers. “Oh, trust me, the only reason I’m leaving is to run away from  _ you.” _

“Oi, I am a  _ delight _ to be around—”

⸻⸻⸻

Tubbo’s bees buzz around them. Tommy huffs a contented sigh, rolling onto his back to stare up at the midday clouds. He tilts his head to make a face at Tubbo, and Tubbo laughs, flopping down beside him to point up at a cloud. 

“That one looks like a dragon,” Tommy says.

The clouds swirl above them. Tubbo hums. “That one looks like an alligator.”

“That one looks like Wilbur’s guitar.”

“Oh my gosh, it does!”

“What about that one?”

“That one looks like a bee!”

“You’re fucking obsessed with bees—”

“No, Tommy,  _ look—” _

Tommy huffs a snicker. The sun is warm on his face, the buzz of the bees lulling him into a sleepy daze. He’s about to drift off when Tubbo points at another cloud and says, “That one looks like a phoenix.”

He turns his head to look, takes it in: The wisps of the clouds that make up the wings and tail, the swirl of the head and beak, the tiny spools of white that rise from the body like flames. “Hm,” he says. “It does.”

Tommy counts a hundred and twenty heartbeats before Tubbo breaks the thin silence. “I think you hurt Dream really bad,” he whispers. 

Tommy’s paid exactly one visit to Dream, and it was enough. Dream is still in the lake—nobody bothered to pull him out of the water after Tommy electrocuted him—and Tubbo’s been using Frost Walker boots to freeze the lake. Now Dream is stuck in a floating position, his limbs literally frozen in place. Tommy couldn’t shake the feeling that Dream could see him, even though his one visible eye was frozen shut. 

They’re considering transporting him to Sam’s prison, since that’s probably the only place that could hold him. They’re not sure. They’re figuring it out step by step.

The fragile silence unspools like a glimmering thread before them. “Is that a good thing?” Tommy asks. 

Tubbo is staring up at the sky, frowning, when Tommy tilts his head to look at him. “I don’t know that it was a good thing,” he murmurs. “But it was necessary.”

“Necessary,” Tommy echoes. That’s a good word for it. 

“What should we do with L’man—” Tubbo falters. “The crater?”

A pang goes through Tommy’s chest. “I dunno. Maybe . . . maybe we can put glass over top or something. So we can see it, but it’ll be safe.”

Tubbo makes a  _ hmm _ noise. “That’d be a big project.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Okay.”

Tommy can’t hold back a smile.

“I think Dream hid the discs somewhere.”

“We can look. Maybe he told Sapnap or George or Bad. He was closest with them, wasn’t he?”

Tommy makes a noncommittal noise. “I don’t know. Not lately. But we can start with that.”

“What’ll we do with them once we get them back?”

Tommy lifts a hand. The fire reflects in Tubbo’s pensive eyes, flickering and dancing. 

“We’ll end it,” Tommy says. “However that ends up happening.”

Tubbo’s hand finds his and squeezes. “And we’ll do that together.”

Tommy stares up at the sky and feels hopeful for the first time in a long time. “Of course,” he says. “We’ll do it together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Now you understand the title, don’t you :)  
> I hope you enjoyed! Feel free to validate me in the comments if you did, I’m considering fleshing out Tommy’s backstory more  
> Again: DO NOT SHIP THEM, PLEASE, THEY ARE JUST FRIENDS  
> If the dream was hard to understand: Tommy threw a tantrum when he was five and accidentally set their house on fire. His parents abandoned him. His first death was from pneumonia, his second death was from a knight after trying to steal some food, and his third death was from a mugging.


End file.
